


Mirror Wound

by Rii



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rii/pseuds/Rii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's only when the boy is too weak to take care of the both of them that Zabuza allows himself any gentleness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Wound

Haku's hands were warm.

Zabuza noticed this when the boy was changing his bandages in the evening.

Unwinding the strips soaked with blood and sweat from around his torso.

They had been doing this routine for three days now.

Setting them carefully aside to be cleaned or burned, if they were too soaked with blood.

There was more white than dried brown. Zabuza was healing. Cleaned, then.

Cleaning. The application of ointment.

Taking out a new set of bandages and winding them again around the wounds.

Haku had little hands, and they were very careful.

He wound the bandages very tightly. Pieces of red and pink began to bloom where the cuts were deepest.

"Will that be all, Zabuza-san?"

His eyes looked like they were closed, from where Zabuza was sitting.

"You can go, now," Zabuza said. "I'm going to sleep."

Haku smiled, bowed, gathered his many things, and so gracefully left.

Zabuza waited, sighed, held his side as he so awkwardly stood, and followed.

Collapsed in the hallway with the basket of soiled bandages spilled around him, he almost looked like he was sleeping.

Haku's touch was very light, and his body was not much lighter.

His breathing was the lightest.

So warm.

Zabuza carefully removed the robe, the sweater, and set them aside. His skin was sticky with sweat and blood.

There was more brown than healthy white, smeared from being hidden underneath the heavy knit.

Haku could not wind his own bandages nearly as tightly.

Zabuza's hands were very rough, and they were not very careful.

But they were as gentle as he could make them for Haku.

He cleaned those wounds (so much deeper on that little body) and clumsily applied ointment from the little pot in Haku's basket.

He found bandages and wound them tightly, keeping the boy's body awkwardly upright, leaned against his shoulder to get the bandages where they needed to go.

Haku's forehead was so warm, and his hair felt soft.

The bandages turned a deep and worrying red.

Zabuza couldn't do anything more. There was no routine for this, no perfect motions.

He laid the boy down on his bed and sat against the wall, sighing.

He woke up in his own bed. Haku was already wearing a new sweater, a new smile.

He was healing.

  



End file.
